Edinburgh Polo Club held their Autumn Tournament over the weekend of the 3rd and 4th of September, the second last competitive weekend of the club season.
Saturday was the day for the preliminary rounds with the Edinburgh Eagles playing Boom Town Funk (yes the names are manufactured near the day of play). It didn’t go too well for the home team, going down 10/11 (scorer ran out of numbers) goals to 1, puting Boom Town Funk into Sunday’s Cup Final. The other finalist was chosen from the best record in a series of Round-robin matches, A Hiro’s Return winning through here.
Edinburgh’s other team, Dalmahoy, went through to play Border Reivers from their series of matches.
The Cup Final was first match up on Sunday, with the two teams lining up for the start under a bright skies with no forecast of rain. The match proceeded with two fairly evenly matched teams playing skilful, end to end Polo. Unfortunately the majority of the goals came from penalties which broke up the flow of play somewhat, but did lead to a thrilling finale. The fourth chukka started on ‘all the 4s’ – fourth chukka and the score at four goals apiece.
The final period continued where the third had left off, but another goal for each team before the final ‘whistle’ went meant an extra 30 seconds play (unless the match stands at a draw the final chukka usually ends on the whistle). Pressure was immediately applied by Boom Town Funk and a penalty in the last few seconds of overtime saw their Captain, Jamie Lindsay, step up to the 30 metre ‘spot’. It wasn’t all plain sailing, as his pony stepped over the ball at the last moment forcing a hit from between it’s front legs. However, the ball somehow managed to trickle over the line to bring the final score to Boom Town Funk – 6, A Hiro’s Return 5.
A proud dad, Jamie Lindsay, accepted the trophy with his son from Mrs. Douglas, who also awarded the ‘Polo Times Blanket’ to Jamie Drummond-Lindsay for the Best Playing Pony on the day.
Report and Photo – John Preece
Web – http://www.photoboxgallery.com/jlp-photographytoo
